Part 30 (1/2)

With her back to Ava, Phoebe couldn't see Ava examine herself in the mirror and the tight fit of a gown that would have, a mere month ago, fit her perfectly. Or see Ava put her hand to her belly and squeeze her eyes shut.

Phoebe didn't see the second tear that slipped from Ava's eye when she realized, with not a little helplessness, that her suspicions must be true-she was carrying his child.

On the night of the grand Downey soiree, Lord Downey would not leave Ava be. ”Where is the

marquis?” he asked excitedly. ”I've an exciting proposition for him that he cannot possibly refuse!””I don't know,” Ava said wearily, feeling a little ill. She'd sent word to him about this wretched event andhad received his reply that he would come. And he did come-in the company of Harrison andStanhope, both of whom looked as if they'd had too much whiskey. He stood to one side.

But he was tolerant of her stepfather-Ava knew, because Downey cornered her later, his little eyesblazing. ”He's agreed to give my venture serious thought!” he said eagerly. ”Serious thought!”

And she supposed he was tolerant of her, for he danced with her.

He asked her in front of several ladies, knowing full well she could not cut him and cause more talk than was already circulating. As it was, the ladies were eyeing them closely, waiting for the first crack in the facade.

When they stepped onto the dance floor, Middleton took her in hand and said, ”Stop looking as if you will perish with disgust at any moment.”

She looked away.

”Look at me,” he commanded her. ”They will think we are arguing if you don't, and I, for one, am sick of the speculation.”

Ava looked at his neckcloth.

”I've missed you,” he said simply.

Her heart wrenched; she lifted her gaze to his hazel eyes and swallowed the bitter taste of tears in the

back of her throat. ”What, as busy as you've been at the zoo? I don't see how you possibly might havemissed someone as insignificant as me.”He sighed, bent his head, and looked at her closely. ”Are you unwell?” he asked.There were the tears again, always the blasted tears since she'd missed her courses.

”Ava...what's wrong?””What's wrong?” she said, blinking back the tears. ”The very thing that has been wrong from thebeginning.”

”G.o.d,” he said, stealing a glance around them. ”Please don't do this here. Not now.””When would you prefer that I do it?

He sighed again, but said nothing. They danced on in silence, his hand warm on her waist, his shoulder firm, wide, and strong beneath her hand. She didn't want to miss him, but she did. Terribly.

At the end of the dance, he kissed her hand and looked at her as if he meant to say something, but then pressed his lips together. ”I am leaving now.”

”Good night,” she said, and as much as she wanted to ask him to stay, she wouldn't. She preferred to cling to whatever shred of pride she had left.

A full two weeks had pa.s.sed since their return to London-two interminably long and tense weeks. The ton was growing restless with rumors, too, he knew-there were little whispers in the gentlemen's club, vague on dits in the society pages. Even Harrison had asked him bluntly if he and Ava were estranged.

”Only temporarily,” Jared had responded.

Harrison frowned. ”What of your father's Autumn Ball? I rather imagine he won't brook an argument between you and Lady Middleton for everyone to see.”

”There is no argument,” Jared lied. ”Nothing more than a young woman adjusting to married life. Lord and Lady Middleton will attend the soiree as required.”

He left it at that, preferring not to tell Harrison about his audience with his father that very morning, only a day after his arrival from Scotland, in which his father had berated him for having mucked up his marriage before it had even begun. As if he needed to be told that. As if he hadn't berated himself a thousand times over.

”You are a disgrace, gallivanting about with your mistress before you've put your seed in your wife's belly!” he'd bl.u.s.tered angrily, a.s.suming what everyone else had a.s.sumed.

It was interesting, Jared had blandly observed, how everything with his father seemed to surround the heir. How sad, he thought, to be so driven by something over which one had absolutely no control. What a miserable existence for the old goat.

”Have you nothing to say for yourself?” his father demanded at the sight of Jared's little smile.

”Nothing, other than I am amazed at how quickly you have gleaned the gossip, having only just arrived in town. And how ironic I find it that you would fault me for doing exactly as you did.”

That clearly surprised the duke. ”I beg your pardon?”

”You kept a mistress, or a series of them, throughout your marriage to Mother,” he said calmly. ”Why would you fault me for doing the same?”

His question, which he'd thought so straightforward, caused his father a near fit of apoplexy. ”You are a vile man,” he said low. ”How dare you!”

”No, Father...the better question is, how dare you? You have disdained me since I was a boy. Perhaps I deserved it-I hardly know or care any longer. But I have done as you've wished-no, as you've commanded. I have married a woman with the pedigree you require. And if we give you your b.l.o.o.d.y heir, I shall be very happy for it. But frankly, I scarcely care if Ava ever bears me a son.” Because he loved her. He loved her. ”Furthermore, I want you to set aside part of the entail of Redford for Mr. Edmond Foote so that he will always be provided for.”

”Who?” the duke asked.

Jared's fist closed. ”My son. Your grandson,” he said tightly.

”You are mad! You've done well enough by him as it is. You've installed the boy and his father at Broderick and given them an income in spite of my warnings-”

”It's not enough. It can never be enough. I want him protected by the grandeur of your name,” Jared said simply. ”And if you don't set aside part of the entail for him, I shall tell the world how you sought to destroy a young boy's world by taking his father from him in a most unscrupulous manner.”

”I didn't take you from him!” the duke said angrily. ”He was never anything to you!”

Jared let that dagger sink into his heart for a moment, then said, ”I didn't mean me, unfortunately. I was referring to your threats to tell a young boy that the man who took him in when he was an infant, the man who ignored the fact he had been sired by me, was not his real father in order to force me into a marriage. Furthermore, you have threatened a decent, Christian man with ruination for having given your grandson a name. Do you have any idea how cruel that was?”

”Honestly-”

”And do you realize, sir, that Mr. Foote has done what you and I have never been capable of doing?”

”I don't know what you mean.”

”He is a father, in every sense of the word. That is a function that has escaped us both. It is too late for me to be a father to Edmond, and I daresay, too late for you to be a father to me. But by G.o.d, I will ask Mr. Foote if there is some role I might serve in my son's life, and I will, at the very least, provide for that child and Mr. Foote, and Edmond's children.”